International Project on the Baltic Harbour Porpoise Receives EU Funding

31 December 2009 - SAMBAH - Static Acoustic Monitoring of the Baltic Sea Harbour Porpoise - is an international project involving all EU countries around the Baltic Sea, with the ultimate goal to secure the conservation of the harbour porpoise in the Baltic Sea. This population is highly endangered, with only a few hundred individuals remaining.
For the protection of this population, the Jastarnia Plan, a Recovery Plan for Baltic Harbour Porpoises, was drawn up under the auspices of ASCOBANS in close collaboration with other organisations and endorsed by Parties in 2002. In September 2009, a revised and updated version of the Jastarnia Plan was adopted. The Plan identifies major threats and makes recommendations to address these. It also acknowledges that data of porpoise abundance in the Baltic Proper is deficient and limited to the south-western part of the Baltic. SAMBAH therefore aims at estimating densities and total abundance and produce distribution maps of harbour porpoises in the Baltic Sea, to identify possible hotspots, habitat preferences and areas of higher risk of conflict with anthropogenic activities. This information is needed for more effective conservation measures.
The project kick-off meeting will be held in conjunction with the Jastarnia group meeting in February 2010. The deployment of the approximately 300 Static Acoustic Monitoring units throughout the study area will start in January 2011.
More information on the project can be found here.

Last updated on 25 March 2014

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